Abstraction

Maria Viktorovna Elkonina, by virtue of her birth into the family of the prominent artists Viktor Borisovich and Nadezhda Mikhailovna Elkonin, was pre-destined to follow the family’s calling. Through her father, who was a member of the “Four Arts” group, and through his artist friends she became acquainted with Paul Cezanne’s art. Elkonina still considers Cezanne the initiator of all of the 20th century’s artistic innovations.

From 23 October 2009 to 14 February 2010 the Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Rome) will present over 160 works by Alexander Calder, including mobiles, stabiles, monumental sculpture, oil and gouache paintings, bronze, wire and wood sculptures and jewelry in an exhibition curated by Alexander S.C. Rower, President of the Calder Foundation.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) was the final venue of the four-museum tour to present the first U.S. museum exhibition exploring the late works of the iconic American artist Andy Warhol (1928-1987). On view there from October 2010 through January 2011, more than 50 works revealed the Pop artistʼs energetic return to painting and renewed spirit of experimentation during the last decade of his life. This period shows Warhol in the midst of his celebrity creating more paintings and on a vastly larger scale than at any other moment of his 40-year career. Exhibition highlights include psychologically revealing fright wig self-portraits, three variations on Leonardo da Vinciʼs The Last Supper, and collaborations with younger artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat. Several of these works – assembled from national and international public and private collections, as well as the BMAʼs exceptional collection of late works by Warhol – were not exhibited until after the artistʼs death.

THE SCULPTOR NIKOLAI SILIS WAS BORN IN 1928 IN MOSCOW, IN THE GRAUERMAN MATERNITY HOSPITAL ON THE ARBAT: THE SILIS FAMILY LIVED NEARBY, IN A COMMUNAL FLAT ON GOGOLEVSKY BOULEVARD. HIS FATHER, ANDREI SILIS, WAS SHOT IN DECEMBER 1941, ON TRUMPED-UP CHARGES, IN THE UKHTIZHEMLAG LABOUR CAMP. HIS MOTHER, YEKATERINA, MIRACULOUSLY SURVIVED THE BLOCKADE OF LENINGRAD, WHERE THE FAMILY HAD TO MOVE AFTER THE FATHER'S ARREST. YEKATERINA SUCCEEDED IN SENDING HER TWO SONS, THE OLDER RUFIM AND THE YOUNGER VADIM, AWAY TO RELATIVES LIVING NEAR THE TOWN OF KALININ.

NATALIA GONCHAROVAS SUBTLE, DISTINGUISHED, HIGHLY MUSICAL AND LEARNED DESIGNS FOR THE THEATRE ELUCIDATE A FUNDAMENTAL SHIFT FROM THE EMPHASIS ON THE BOMBASTIC, GLORY-OBSESSED CELEBRATIONS FOR DIAGHILEV'S SPECTACLES TO PERFORMANCES THAT STRESSED THE VIRTUES OF INDIVIDUALITY, FANTASY AND HISTORY. DIAGHILEV'S ABSOLUTE POWER WITHIN THE RUSSIAN WORLD OF THEATRE, SIMILAR TO THAT OF LOUIS XIV, RESIDED IN ITS REPRESENTATION AND CONTROL OF THAT REPRESENTATION, WHICH RESIDED NOT ONLY WITH DIAGHILEV BUT ALSO WITH HIS ARTISTS, WHO, LIKE THE KING'S HISTORIOGRAPHERS, CREATED THEATRICAL IMAGES ON WHICH THE OPINION OF POSTERITY DEPENDED.